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Shadows of Equestria
NOT DONE is a fictional MMORPG played by the characters in the Formspring roleplay and provides the awkward situation where real people are roleplaying ponies who are also roleplaying. Looooosers. utilizes cel-shaded 3-dimensional graphics. Draco would not at all mind if somebody made this game (yeah right.) Basic gameplay Dual Plane System Every map in the game is, in terms of gameplay, flat and two-dimensional. These maps are also composed of a Lower and a Higher Plane. The Lower Plane, generally located on the ground, is the default location for all players, and generally has the least mobility due to obstacles that cannot be walked over. The Higher Plane, located in midair, can only be travelled by characters capable of flight, such as pegasus players and higher-levelled unicorns. It is entirely inaccessible to an earth pony player without special items or assistance from a unicorn. Attacks must explicitly state that they can attack from the Lower Plane to the Higher Plane or vice versa in order to be able to do so. For this reason, earth ponies have a distinct disadvantage against pegasus, as they lack a wide array of long-range attacks. Class and Talent System lacks strictly defined classes and instead utilizes Talents. Every character may select five Talents at creation, one of which is the Innate Talent (see below), and name their class based on the general theme of their selection. Several templates are provided, such as "Berserker", "Paladin", or "Priest". A Talent is a single tree of related skills and abilities, such as the "Pyromancy" Talent focusing exclusively on fire-aligned magic. It has its own experience bar and can be levelled up to 100% mastery (that is, level 100.) As actions related to a Talent are performed (depending on the individual Talent), it will gain experience / Mastery, and award the character with new abilities at certain thresholds. Its Mastery value is also used in calculations to determine the effect of skills under that Mastery. Every character is limited to one Civil Talent, such as Carpentry or Alchemy, and choosing a Civil Talent sacrifices a space that could be used to strengthen combat abilities. For this reason, perfectionists such as Apple Bloom/Draco and Rarity/Draco do not include Civil Talents on their main characters. Innate and Special Talents Every species or race in has one Talent already selected (see races below), leaving four spaces for characters to select Talents. All Innate Talents are race-specific and unavailable in any form to other races. Every character may also select one Special Talent which will be able to reach 120% mastery, with unique and generally very powerful abilities only available at this level. Powers, Perks, and Plates As Talents are improved, the character will earn Powers, Perks, and Plates. Powers are equivalent to skills from other MMORPG's and are active abilities, primarily attacks. Once earned, this power remains available at Rank I (the maximum being Rank III) regardless of the player's Talent Grid setup (see below) and may be assigned to macro buttons and used at will. Perks are passive abilities whose effects remain constant once earned. Some Perks also have Ranks, and in such a case will default to Rank I and can be raised to Rank III through the Talent Grid. Plates are Tetris-like pieces of various shapes and sizes to place on the Talent Grid; see Talent Grid. Talent Grid The Talent Grid is the primary means of customizing a character after character creation. It is similar to the NaviCust from Megaman Battle Network. The Talent Grid is a square grid in which Tetris-like pieces called Talent Plates may be placed to enhance a character's abilities. It begins at 3x3, but upgrades to 5x5 and then 7x7 as the character levels. The Talent Grid may be modified freely whenever the character is in a no-combat zone such as a town, or on the character select screen if the character logged out in such a location. It cannot be modified while "in combat", i.e. outside of designated customization zones such as towns. Races allows characters to be one of several races. Only GameMasters can be divine ponies or "alicorns" - the GameMasters are, in-universe, playing members of the royal family, and will thus usually be either this race or a unicorn. Gamemasters may also occasionally take control of an avatar in the likeness of a story character, such as Celestia or Luna. A player's race, despite stereotypical images of each race, does not affect their core statistics such as Strength, though a given race will generally favor a given stat (e.g. most unicorns will want INT.) Season 1 These races were available from game launch. ;Earth pony :Innate Talent: Geomancy :Earth ponies have no wings and no horns, giving them a distinct disadvantage in mobility. However, they have great minds for science and manual labor, and are by far the most durable of the pony races. :Earth ponies are fast on their feet, but they cannot compete with a pegasus. Their limited ranged attacks are based on movement and control and weak in damage, but capable of interrupting unicorn casts. Unicorns are also infamously squishy. :Earth ponies boast an exclusive intimate connection with the earth. Their terraforming and farming abilities are legendary. ;Pegasus :Innate Talent: Pegasus Flight :Pegasus are more delicate than earth ponies, but are capable of great strength. Their speed is second to none and they boast the unique ability to sculpt and direct the clouds and weather. They can generally run circles around earth ponies, but are helpless against the attacks of a unicorn. :Pegasus Flight not only improves movement speed and allows unlimited passage in the Higher Plane, but also gives some weather effects such as lightning attacks. ;Unicorn :Innate Talent: Telekinesis :Unicorns maintain a chokehold on magic, and have a slew of Talents available only to them such as Pyromancy. :Unicorn magic allows them to effortlessly track down and assault airborne pegasus, but their fragile forms are susceptible to the brute strength of earth ponies. :Telekinesis allows unicorns access to unique weaponry such as bows, and gives them the power to manipulate objects too large, heavy, or awkward for other races. Shattered Mirror These races became available starting from the first expansion pack, Shattered Mirror, which added Nequestria as a no mare's land PVP zone. ;Gryphon :Innate Talent: Gryphon Flight ;Zebra :Innate Talent: Spiritualism ;Deer (Cerynian) :Innate Talent: Floropathy :The deer are friendly but easily startled, and the only one they truly trust is the forest. Deer have a special connection with nature that allows them to utilize many defensive and tactical skills such as camouflage or protection. Identity Crisis These races became available starting from the second expansion pack, Identity Crisis, which dramatized the wedding of Shining Armor and Cadance, the latter of whom is missing. ;Changeling :Innate talent: Metamorphosis :Changelings have the ability to store a list of players, monsters, and NPC's, and turn into their physical appearances as desired, copying their name, title, and all other display options. Because of this, changeling players receive more lax rules on impersonation of other players under the "good faith" rule. :Disguised changelings receive some gameplay perks such as accessing restricted areas and avoiding or drawing hostility of some monsters and NPC's. However, :Changelings with a low level in Metamorphosis may be unable to transform into high-level NPC's or monsters (e.g. Celestia) or may fail checks to pass themselves off when suspicion is arisen. :Changelings find far more PVP success on RP servers, as on normal servers it is far too easy to "bug check". Story The player character, through various circumstances based on values in character creation such as race and Special Talent selection, ends up visiting if not living in a simple village in the middle of nowhere. The player character is soon drawn into various conflicts involving such terrors as Nightmare Moon, Discord, Catrina, Tirek, etc. and is informed that they are the Bearer of a seventh Element of Harmony. What that Element is, no one's sure, because everyone thought there were six. The player character is informed that the Bearers are protected by the Elements of Harmony in that when acting as Bearers, their identities are quickly wiped from the memories of witnesses. Only the Bearers themselves know each other's identities, as well as any extremely powerful individuals (e.g. Discord) or previous Bearers such as Celestia and Luna. Trivia * The game's graphics, although celshaded, are reasonably detailed, leading to the design team performing a few artistic liberties and workarounds: ** Celestia (along with all other royal family characters) wears an elaborate royal gown; hers is extra long because there was no other way the team could make the graphics detailed and "realistic" while not rendering her ridiculously large breasts. They aren't on the model, but the gown exists to hide this obvious absence. ** Any characters who wear clothes "in real life" and some high-profile characters who don't now have elaborate and striking outfits to make them more interesting, most noticeable with the Bearer of Magic's Cute Magical Girl witch robes. * In the Formspring RP, the Bearers of Harmony in the game do not closely resemble the actual Bearers of Harmony (i.e. Twilight and co.) because the Elements really do hide their identities; the game developers don't know the Bearers' identities either.